Check out Bill McKibben’s essay in the latest Foreign Policy magazine. It’s full of straight talk about the reality of climate change, debunking plenty of the skeptics’ arguments along the way. For McKibben (a Grist board member, BTW), the real question is whether there’s sufficient will in the international community to take on the very hard challenge of climate change. Here’s an excerpt:
“Despite the rapid industrialization of countries such as China and India, and the careless neglect of rich ones such as the United States, climate change is neither any one country’s fault, nor any one country’s responsibility. It will require sacrifice from everyone. Just as the Chinese might have to use somewhat more expensive power to protect the global environment, Americans will have to pay some of the difference in price, even if just in technology. Call it a Marshall Plan for the environment. Such a plan makes eminent moral and practical sense and could probably be structured so as to bolster emerging green energy industries in the West. But asking Americans to pay to put up windmills in China will be a hard political sell in a country that already thinks China is prospering at its expense. It could be the biggest test of the country’s political maturity in many years.”
There you have it. Is America mature enough to help save the planet?
